


Just Go

by Izhilzha



Series: In Fire, Some Say In Ice [2]
Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-15
Updated: 2008-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 02:54:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izhilzha/pseuds/Izhilzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What the "end of the world" might look like to Blair Sandburg. Part 2 of a series of 5 linked ficlets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Go

I've always been a pretty heavy sleeper. The pounding on our front door an entire floor away got through to me at about the same time Gina's voice did. "Blair? Honey, wake up."

"Oof. Yeah. I got it." I stumbled out of bed into icy air—damn, after 3 years I still wasn't used to Michigan winters– and grabbed my robe off the bedpost on my way into the hall.

The pounding continued; at this rate, whoever it was would wake our neighbors. Between the cold and the adrenaline, I woke up enough to recognize the knot of dread in my stomach. The middle of the night was never a time for good news.

At least there were some things it couldn't be.

It wasn't a telephone call from someone in Cascade.

The pounding stopped as soon as I reached the bottom of the stairs. "Blair!"

I couldn't get the door open fast enough: deadbolt, lock, disarming the damn alarm system. Jim leaned heavily against the door frame. Clouds of breath blurred his outline in the light from the streetlight behind him. He stumbled inside as soon as I opened the door, and immediately turned to slam it and throw the bolt.

"Jim! What are you doing here?" I groped for the light switch on the entry wall, and his hand unerringly snagged my wrist.

"No lights." The words were breathless, but sharp; an order rather than a request.

"What's going on?" For a moment he didn't answer. I was wide awake now, and trying to decipher what I could by the light that leaked in through the windows. "Jim?"

He lifted his head, straightened his shoulders. "You have to go. Get Gina, get the kids. Go."

"Why, what happened?"

"They've figured out I'm not the only Sentinel in existence. And they've figured out how useful we'd be to them."

"Who the hell are 'they'?" I had a pretty good idea. We'd talked about the risk of discovery off and on since that first year. And again, after Gina showed me her research. After we decided to look for other children like Sean. Like Jim had been. But there'd been nothing like this, no hint of it, in all that time. I'd almost stopped considering the possibility at all.

Jim's laugh was dry and short. "Lee Brackett's working for them, if that jump-starts your imagination."

A footstep on the stairs behind us made me jump. "That can't happen. My research is all public." Gina sounded absolutely confident, but she didn't turn the light on. "There's no way some secret government faction is going to be monopolizing it."

"It's not enough. The only public data is your work on hyper-senses. Not the full Sentinel deal." Jim took a step backwards, leaned against the door. "I should have stepped forward. Made sure this didn't happen. I'm almost at retirement anyway, it wouldn't have mattered. I just didn't think."

He still sounded breathless, and my own breath caught in my chest as I listened. "Wait a sec. Gina, isn't Beth Winters working on something—"

"Yeah, at the Genome Project." Gina pressed up against my side, her hand gripping my shoulder. "Jim, we have proof. It just needs to go to publication."

"Doctor Beth Winters is missing," Jim said tightly. "Along with anything she might have been working on."

No wonder Jim had appeared at our door in the dead of night. "So they've already started information control."

The breath went out of Gina in an audible gasp. Her fingers dug into my shoulder, and I turned to steady her, afraid she was about to collapse. "Oh fuck," she said, my wife who makes a deliberate point of not swearing. "Oh, God, oh, my God. Beth had DNA samples from every single kid at the Center."

I almost collapsed with her. So not only did this mystery group have the knowledge to identify Sentinels and carriers of the genetics, they also had a ready-made list of targets.

"You have to go." Jim dug into his jacket pocket, and pressed a cell phone into my hand. "New, disposable, not traceable to you. Warn who you can. If you've got any favors to pull in with members of the press, see if they'll get the word out. But go. Now."

I strained to make out his face in the dimness. "I know at least two reporters who'd love to interview you, man."

"I'm not coming." He answered my question before I could ask it: "They can track me."

"What--?"

Jim grabbed my arm hard enough to leave a bruise. "It's not something I can get rid of. I'm staying here. And you don't have much time."

"Jim—"

Gina broke away from me, stood on her tiptoes and kissed Jim on the cheek. "Thank you," she said, voice thick with tears, before she ran for the stairs.

"Jim—" I wanted to ask how he could be sure, why he wouldn't at least try, where he'd gotten this information, but he stopped the words with a hand across my mouth.

"Chief, there's no time. I'll stand watch while you get Nikky and Kate. But I'm staying here." He stepped back, took up a guard position at the window beside the door. "Go."

In the light from outside, I saw what he'd managed to mask with the dark, with his voice. His cheeks were wet, and for maybe the first time since I've known him, he looked . . . terrified. One hand pushed back his jacket, and I knew it rested against his pistol. He looked at me. "Just . . . go."

In my mind's eye, I could see him still standing there when they came for him. Sighting, taking them out one by one. Kneeling on the floor, checking the last bullet in the chamber, putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth before they could break through the door.

I wanted to say something—goodbye, or I love you, or take care, but nothing came out.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a series of thematically linked fics, without many actual spoilers, all of them future-fics or AU in some way. Many thanks to V. Laike for her beta work, especially on the _Supernatural_ installment.


End file.
